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Tag Archives: Addiction

With the recent suicidal death of comedian Robin Williams still fresh in our minds and hearts, I thought I would spend the last part of this series on depression considering the physiology of addiction in general and the nutritional profile of an alcoholic, along with some helpful nutritional and herbal support protocols.

The question I would like to explore and hopefully shed some light on is, “What comes first: depression or addiction? ” My immediate suggestion is that addiction comes first. Here’s why I think addiction comes before depression.

Quite simply put, alcohol depletes B Vitamin in the blood stream and over time literally cooks and petrifies the liver. The liver then can no longer process its chemistry, chief among which is the conversion of blood sugar to glycogen (inositol) for brain fuel. The brain’s energy depends on glycogen, and without B Vitamins, the pancreas cannot make insulin. Without insulin, blood sugar cannot be delivered to the brain and the cells of the body. A severe drop in energy occurs which triggers a craving for sugar. Alcohol turns to sugar in the blood stream. The social drinker turns more and more to alcohol for sugar, not to mention inhibition and escape from reality. As liver function is compromised, vital nutrients such as iron and glycogen, as well as hormones, fail to be released into the blood stream, and left-over hormones do not get deactivated. Without nutrients and sugar, the brain cannot function. Its chemistry becomes desperately imbalanced. Depression sets in.

This is not to say that clinical depression doesn’t come before addiction, especially to prescription drugs and, of course, recreational drugs. Alcohol, of course, is a drug. So, a person who is depressed may turn to drugs and alcohol for a mental and emotional “high.” In this instance, depression does come first.

As I considered in the previous post of July 22nd, depression is a spiritual event. It is the suppression of love, the imprisonment of the Self; a prison from which escape seems increasingly impossible. Suicide is often chosen as the only way out.

WHAT SUICIDE ISN’T

Suicide is not a cowardly act nor a show of weakness. On the contrary, it takes a huge amount of courage and compassion. Courage to do the irreversible and compassion for one’s family and close friends upon whom the person will no longer be a problem or a burden. Suicide totally removes one from the stressful and overwhelming reality of one’s world. If you have time to read a well-written and thoughtful article which appeared on Facebook in the wake of Robin’s suicide, click on this link to open a separate window. “The Death Of Robin Williams, And What Suicide Isn’t” by Elizabeth Hawksworth.

A NUTRITIONAL PROGRAM TO SUPPORT THE BODY WITH ALCOHOLISM AND DEPRESSION

St. John’s Wort has been known to relieve depression, and here’s why. This herb has a way of detoxifying the pathways in the liver that process and release stored vital nutrients into the bloodstream. (See the commentary below). It’s a liver detox herb, so powerful that it even destroys drugs, prescription and so-called “recreational” drugs, rendering them impotent and ineffective. That’s a drawback for someone on heart and other crisis intervention medications. You cannot take St. John’s Wort if you are taking prescription drugs for crisis intervention and prevention (such as heart attack, hypertension and stroke.)

A LIVER DETOX AND REPAIR PROTOCOL

You can detox your liver with a 21-day program. All you have to do is refrain completely from refined carbohydrates and take a few pills and capsules with your daily meals. There are two phases to this detox program.

Phase I: neutralizes many chemicals directly and excretes them in the bile. St. John’s Wort-IMT (3 capsules per day: 1 with each meal.) will destroy drugs by doubling the liver P450 enzyme action that makes drugs ineffective. NOT TO BE TAKEN WHEN ON CRITICAL PRESCRIPTION MEDICATIONS.

(NOTE: The following products are by Standard Process Labs and Medi-Herb and are available only through healthcare professionals. It is not recommended to take these products without the professional management of a qualified healthcare practitioner.)

Hepatrophin (3/day) – Helps repair and rebuild the liver. Helps the liver release iron and other stored nutrients and hormones into the bloodstream.

St. John’s Wort-IMT (3) – NOT TO BE USED WHEN ON CRITICAL MEDICATIONS (See commentary below)

Spanish Black Radish (6) – Supports gastrointestinal tract function, promoting the body’s detoxification mechanism by cleansing the colon through excretion of toxic materials. It also contains sulfur, which has an antibiotic action. It acts as a diuretic and promotes systemic detoxification by activating the liver’s primary detoxification mechanism, the cytochrome P450 and the Phase II enzyme system.

Cholacol II (4 tabs. 15 minutes before meals) – Bentonite clay grabs and absorbs toxic metals and chemicals being excreted by the liver and dumped into the intestinal tract for elimination. This prevents toxins from being taken up into the body during elimination through the gut.

The following commentary on St. John’s Wort-IMT is excerpted from the CLINICAL REFERENCE GUIDE put out to professionals by Standard Process and Medi-Herb. It is such an important herbal/nutritional supplement that I want my readers to fully understand it. So I am re-publishing it here.

Commentary: ST. JOHN’S WORT- IMT includes INOSITOL and MIN- TRAN and is present in a base of calcium, magnesium, alfalfa, carrot oil, and kelp, which all function synergistically to support the nervous system. St. John’s Wort is used in cases of mild to moderate depression particularly when side effects from standard anti-depressant drugs become intolerable to the patient. Also, it is usable with symptoms of menopause, neuralgia, sciatica, and spinal injuries. In addition to offering the known therapeutic benefits of ST. JOHN’S WORT, this product specifically supports thyroid function. This is critical as even sub-clinical hypothyroidism can be associated with incidences of mild to severe depression and manic-depressive episodes. Clinical studies have shown ST. JOHN’S WORT to produce similar and/or better results when compared to antidepressant drugs in the treatment of mild to moderate depression (Vorbach ED et aI., 1997; Pharmacopsych 30:S81-5). An additional benefit found was the absence of significant side effects. INOSITOL has therapeutic effects in mood disorders that are generally responsive to selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. Clinical studies suggest that conditions including depression, pain and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) show beneficial results with the use of INOSITOL, but without the adverse side effects of TCA’s (Benjamin 1., et al. Psychopharmacol Bull 31(1):167-75, 1995).

IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO DO THE ABOVE

At least do this for your liver over a period of six weeks to help it detoxify, repair and rebuild.

(NOTE: The following products are by Standard Process Labs and Medi-Herb and are available only through healthcare professionals. It is not recommended to take these products without the professional management of a qualified healthcare practitioner.)

Livaplex – Start with 2 per day and build up to 6. This is a liver detox formulation of synergistic whole food nutrients.

Catalyn – 6 tablets per day, 3 with breakfast and 3 with dinner. This is a multiple vitamin and mineral supplement, the best on the planet.

Albaplex – 6 capsules per day (3 morn and 3 eve). This will help the kidneys and liver detox and support the immune system in dealing with infection.

Protefood – 3 capsules per day (1 with ea. meal). This will take sugar cravings away by balancing blood sugar.

Disclaimer: None of the above recommendations and products are intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease but are solely intended to support normal organ and tissue function in the human body.

If I can be of any assistance to you with these programs, feel free to contact me by email. Until my next post . . .

here’s to your health and healing.

Anthony Palombo, D.C.

Email: dranthonypalombo@live.com

Visit my other blog at HealingTones.org for inspirational reading. As of today, 120 countries have visited my blogs.

We had an interesting event happen in our family over the Holidays, which I think may be an eye-opener to others besides ourselves. One of our close relatives commented that for the first time their children didn’t know what they wanted for Christmas, and the reason they gave was the eye-opener: for the first time they didn’t have live television in their home, so the kids didn’t know what toys were out there. In other words, they had not been exposed to mass media advertising. Wow! What a testimony to the influence of television in our lives!

A couple of months before the Holidays, a close friend for many years, Dr. Tom Cooper, asked me to read a book he was about to release entitled “FAST MEDIA / MEDIA FAST.” Well, I read the first two chapters and then had to set it aside until after our move to Southern Oregon from the Denver area. I had offered to do a book review on my blog, so to keep my word I recently returned to his book online, more out of my integrity in making good on my offer than out of keenly piqued interest.

Quite frankly, I had already grown somewhat weary of reading all the data the author had presented up front enumerating the many horrible things we are allowing the Media to do to our lives. To be totally honest, in a peculiar way I felt irritated that someone would take icons that are such an integral part of our daily lives – television, movies, the Internet – and suggest we even consider the possibility we are addicted to them. But then, why not, if indeed we are?

Not that he does it without a lot of compassion and understanding – and certainly not at all to bash the media. The data is presented very objectively without the slightest tone of condemnation or criticism. And he does re-count the many blessings in changed lives great programs of mediated material (movies, books, music, TV programs, etc.) have bestowed upon us and continue to bring to our lives as we’ve used them consciously and creatively.

Nevertheless, for me it was akin to the discomfort I felt listening to all the data warning against smoking in years gone by when I once enjoyed the companionship of a cigarette and especially my pipe. Fortunately, I developed an allergy to tobacco in answer to a prayer that the Almighty find a way to take the addiction away from me. It was the addiction that I found limiting and distasteful and not the tobacco.

As it turns out, this is the real message Dr. Cooper conveys is his well-written, thought provoking, and reader-friendly (for an intellectual professor, that is) book: it’s our addiction to and abuse of mediated entertainment and information that the author brings to our attention – as seems typically the case with what we do with the good things life brings to us. We tend to lose our balance and allow ourselves to become addicted, like the proverbial couch potato, to the consumption of our own creations and media of entertainment.

With the added incentive spurred by the story about our relatives whose kids didn’t know what they wanted for Christmas in the absence of live TV in their home, I returned to Tom’s book with renewed interest and a stronger commitment to hear him out all the way and tell my blog readers about this painfully essential and wonderfully important book. So, here it is. . . . a truly important book with a timely message for all inhabitants of the planet.

“FAST MEDIA/MEDIA FAST”

I will start by saying the author, Thomas W. Cooper, PhD, a very personable and sweet-hearted gentle-man, besides being a fellow and fine musician, is a scholar and a Harvard-groomed university professor from Swampscott, Mass. This, in and of itself, speaks volumes about his scholastic dependence on media in his chosen field of service. His publisher, Dr. Michael Gaeta, also a good friend and colleague in the healing arts, introduces his author/friend in the Forward of the book:

In this cacophony of fast media, which make for superficial lives, comes Dr. Cooper’s learned voice, speaking words of wisdom and balance. Brilliant academics are at times disconnected from most people’s daily life experience, preferring complex theoretical frameworks to wisdom sourced in authentic experience. Dr. Cooper is remarkable in that his impeccable academic credentials are balanced by a heart-filled, spiritual, and eminently practical perspective, based in deep life experience.

Now, here’s what got my attention, and I think will grab your’s as well when you read his book. In preparation for his research project on the media’s influence in human affairs, Tom decided to go on a month-long fast from all media. That’s right, he unplugged the TV and avoided the Internet for an entire month. After that, he decided to punctuate his media fast with an additional week-long fast from talking . . . except, of course, when he was spoken to and where it was necessary to his teaching duties. Then he turns around and writes a book sharing his experiences during his fasts, which are really quite interesting, even inviting as they open opportunities in the privacy of personal introspection for honest self-examination.

He then proceeds to lay out not only thoroughly researched and well documented data on the ramifications of the involvement of the media in our lives, both “good and bad,” but, even more helpful, how to go about taking a fast once in a while from our daily media diet, a diet to which we have grown accustomed, perhaps even addicted. He even outlines how to do group fasts for families, classes or any group, and cites whole communities who permanently fast from all electronic media, even telephones and computers, such as the Plain People — the Amish and Old Order Mennonite, the Hutterite, and other subcultures.

Dr. Cooper gives guidelines in the form of symptoms of addiction, to which his readers may readily relate:

Long-term effects of addiction may often be … subtle …. Staying up later each night, or changing one’s job to see the soaps, hiding an earphone line up one’s sleeve in class to hear the conclusion of baseball games, uninterrupted listening to music on the job to avoid boredom, missing appointments to see the next episode, wearing headsets while jogging to blot out the environment, reading a book through meals and events because “I couldn’t put it down,” and showing up late for meals whenever online, are all examples of media hooking us and rescheduling our lives….

He further helps us understand the nature of and distinction between habits and addictions:

One definition of the word habit is “act that is acquired and has become automatic.” Addiction carries the additional connotation “devoted to” or “given up to” or “controlled by” a specific habit. Usually, a habit forms prior to an addiction to that habit. For example, I might consciously eat ice cream periodically late at night. It is only when I eat it consistently and eventually automatically late at night that it becomes a habit. If I become conscious of the habit from time to time and decide to go without ice cream, I “break the habit” at will. When I discover that the habit can no longer be broken easily or will bring discernible consequences (depression, headaches, eating ice-cream substitutes late at night, etc.), the habit has become an addiction.

Similar to books on dieting and fasting from food, FAST MEDIA/MEDIA FAST includes a detailed guide on how to go about a media fast . . . and I must admit the author does so with keen sensitivity and generous support based on his own well earned understanding of the enormous undertaking such a fast could and likely would be for most of us.

To balance it all out, Dr. Cooper cites the many, many ways that the various kinds of media are useful in our lives and how we may return to our consumption of mediated material in a balanced way so as not to be consumed and controlled by it. That aspect of the book I really appreciated and thoroughly celebrate. Here’s a sampling of Tom’s balanced perspective, as well as a taste of the appeal and quality of his writing style, as he writes of and from his own experience:

During my media fasts, I consciously chose to be a creator, not a consumer. I let my mind relax, find different routings and mix new ingredients. By returning to composing and playing instruments I had abandoned, I found a strong river of inner creativity that had been dammed. Although I am not condemning reading, I found that a temporary switch from reading books to writing one restored a full measure of initiative to my work.

This “single switch” in consciousness and in action might be described as living from the inside out, rather than from the outside in. It is characterized by rediscovery of the creative process, which many of us abandon—some forever—usually during childhood. Motivation sharply increases, so much so that virtually any procrastination from the creative process seems a total waste of time. As a child I can recall times when the games, tree houses, sports or skits we were creating became so all-consuming and enjoyable that we could not wait for the next day to begin.

“MEDIA AS FRIENDS, NOT VILLAINS”

When the “single switch” is made from information gluttony to creative communication, one may return to media with new ears, eyes and thoughts. Instead of viewing media as mind pollution, each medium may be employed as a tool of creativity. When the mind and emotions begin to originate creative images and sounds, why not extend that creativity through books, radio, cyberspace, cassettes, or whatever is suitable? Media never have been enemies, in and of themselves. Rather, they simply amplify, disseminate and perpetuate the nature of human consciousness…. To the extent one’s work genuinely originates in the creative process, rather than duplicates conventional programming, it will assist in the liberation rather than enslavement of audience members. The single switch is contagious.

Rarely does one find an author who is as intimately familiar with his/her subject as Dr. Cooper reveals when writing about our “other freedoms” of which we are robed by our subjugation to mediated material, such as movies that bring us to tears against our will every time we see them. I’m a real softy when it comes to joyful scenes in movies like “It’s a Wonder Life,” which Tom sites in his book. As a physician, I was intrigued by his inquiry about the impact of manipulated emotions on our health:

Are these emotions genuine? Do they serve a purpose? To what extent are they voluntary? How do they affect our nervous system? Which ones will be replayed when triggered in the future? Do they upset the endocrine glands? Does this affect our emotional expression in the “real world”? Our emotional stability? No one seems to be asking or answering these questions with authority.

Then there’s the impact of over consumption of television on our children, scary to say the least:

Healy’s 1990 research suggests that television may be related to children’s attention and learning difficulties. In one sense, TV is a multi-level form of sensory deprivation that may stunt the growth of children’s brains. The combined research of Poplowski (1998), Gross (1999), Mander (1978), and Scheidler (1994) remind us that children are not just watching programs or surfing the Net, but are staring into flickering, radiant computer monitors and into fuzzy cathode-ray electron guns.

Johnson (1999) synthesizes this research to show what common sense might dictate: since repetitive screening allows functions of the corpus callosum, cortex, neocortex and limbic system to atrophy, children become more mentally lazy, uncoordinated and underdeveloped. She concludes that what children truly need to develop their minds are purposeful activities using their hands, feet and whole bodies; much exposure to nature and imaginative books; and much less media….

…More than anyone, parents and teachers may explain the difference between the “consumer” and the “creator” to children. The music classes, sports programs, summer camps, family outings, and educational or therapeutic hobbies in which we enroll our offspring pay lifelong dividends.

But, hey folks, our children will inevitably do what we do and not what we say. This is one of my most favorite passages from Dr. Cooper’s book:

However, those who are addicted cannot bring others out of addiction. Since children are watching us for leadership and example, our own habits will loom large to them. In that regard, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s persuasive quotation applies as much to what adolescents see in us as to what they see in the hidden optical patterns in TV, video and computer screens. Emerson stated: “Do not say things. What you are stands over you the while and thunders, so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.”

The author sums up his perspective on the benefits of a media fast, such as regaining our five lost freedoms:

…. If there can be media addiction, then there can also be media liberation. But media liberation does not necessarily mean liberation from mass communication. Rather, it means liberation from the rigid attitudes, manipulated emotions, frozen thoughts, assumed identities and truncated perspectives that both contribute to and result in media addiction…. Fasting from any substitute for living can be liberating and empowering. The transition from consumer to creator can increase effectiveness and influence simultaneously.

Then there’s the impact of FAST MEDIA on our sense of meaning and time to keep up . . . with life itself:

“When I was faster, I was always behind” is a catchy refrain from Neil Young’s “Slow Poke.” (Reprise Records, 1999) Young’s apercu suggests that there are unintended and ironic consequences due to speed changes. As a child, I would play the long-playing 33 1/3 rpm records at the faster speeds of 45 rpms and 78 rpms with my friends. We found there were comic, absurd, and even fascinating effects at the faster speeds. But we could no long understand the song’s meaning. Is it the same for society? …If so, the death of meaning, or of the time to find it, could be one of the most tragic unintended effects of the three “uppers”—keep-up, speed-up and blow-up….

Then there’s the role of choice:

The ultimate freedom rests in seeing that one has a choice—to identify with the creator or the consumer. Becoming the creator does not mean mindlessly bashing the media any more than mindlessly digesting it. In fact, one of the easiest, cheapest and most creative ways to publicize your liberation is to create a Web site or printed article about your creations.

Or, as I discovered for myself, start up a blog! It doesn’t matter if anybody follows it either. The real benefit to me is the writing of it, the delightful flow of creative thought and feeling; the creative release of my spirit through the carrier waves of words and ideas. That’s the real benefit of creative use of any and all forms of media.

ALL SOUND ARISES OUT OF SILENCE . . . AND RETURNS TO SILENCE

As a sound healer, I know that the purest and finest moment to connect with the healing current within is the golden moment of silence after the sounds fade out. All sound arises out of silence and returns to silence. True communication arises out of silence. If I have something important to say, let me be quiet first in order to listen and hear what it is. Sound can be a tool for healing when used as a carrier wave for spirit and consciousness. Not just any sound. Sound that arises out of the silence that lies within. The Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan called that “Music.” Dr. Cooper sees silence as a door to deeper awareness of presence:

Such personal silence emphasizes not so much what is absent, but rather hidden dimensions of self which suddenly become present. I am not suggesting that “enlightenment” or “wisdom” are automatically more available to the silent than to the loquacious. After all, a zombie seems silent; a corpse is still. But if the stillness is purposeful, consistent, focused, intelligent, and deliberately connected to a creative process, a larger awareness can appear, step-by-step.

Finally, as any good author would do, Cooper saved the best until last and brings his reader all the way Home to the inner soundscape of being itself. I personally think that his final chapter is the most inspiring of all. In writing about his speech fast, he crafts timeless words of insight and wisdom:

Naturally, there are other purposes for a speech fast—to enlarge one’s awareness of sound and listening, to learn of and from one’s interior soundscape, and to discover who is present beneath the mask…. …When clichés are liberated from our overuse, we discover in stillness the deeper meaning of “still waters run deep…..” …being is the central ingredient of such depth, and the core of such stillness. Of course, when one stops over-reading and listens…. and indeed invigorates one’s own expression, yet another level of being is known.

What is discovered in these depths, or paradoxically at these heights, might be called being fully present. Fasting from all distraction, including one’s own post-dubbed narrative over the sounds and images of life, allows a sense of anchoring in this ground of being…present. The answer to the question “What is present when my programming is absent?” is “I am.”

IN THE END . . . TRUTH

Fasting from food with only juice and water to purify the body’s cells and fluids is a wonderful experience when done during a speech and media fast, as Dr. Cooper testifies toward the end of his book . . . and he ends his book with a wise suggestion as to the end purpose of any fast:

Our deepest danger is that we would ignore truth and not care, that we would persist in belief and hope, and thus avoid evidence. The longing for truth unites the spirit of education, religion, philosophy, science and journalism. If fast media were to ring true, not attract through the cosmetic, there would be less need for a media fast. It is to that quest for the ongoing discovery of truth, as best we may determine it, that this book, fast and life are dedicated. One and the truth are a majority…. So one of the deepest purposes of a media fast lies in the pursuit, and even the revelation, of truth. What is the truth of myself beneath my programming?

I highly recommend my friend’s book to my blog readers. Order it online today and start the New Year with an enjoyable read on a timely subject.

So, here’s to your good health in 2011 . . . . and how about a media fast to start off the New Year?!

Dr.Tony Palombo

P.S. Tom’s book is available as an E-book (no e-reader necessary) atGaetapress.com and can also be pre-ordered there whether as a hard copy or paperback. It will be available from the usual sources (Amazon; Barnes &Noble, etc.) this spring.